Thursday
I dreamed last night that I was going to die. The details have
already faded, all I can remember is that somehow I knew
I was seconds away from death.

I didn't know how it would
happen.

Like
a 747 pitching sickenly; hundreds of screaming yellow oxygen
masks dropping and jangling, batted at with frantic hands; a
whistling shriek of pressure loss; a yawning roll that sends
carry-on luggage exploding out from cabinets and tumbling through
the air.

Like
a tentative step at 14,000 ft; a delicate shift of weight that
results in a gunshot crack; an earsplitting roar of snow and
ice, the ground opening up to an otherworldly blue ice mouth
fading to black; a dropped iceaxe; a boneless, flailing fall.

Like
a rusty station wagon screeching around a corner, a barrel suddenly
poking out its cold steel eye; a punching bag blow to the chest
that spins you sideways; a weak, scrabbling crawl on your hands
and knees; a perfect spreading red circle.

Just that it was going
to.

I'm not religious. If you
wondered. I don't subscribe to any doctrine, nor do I think of
myself as being spiritual in any particular sense. Let me say
this - I have been open minded, but have never believed.

So in my dream I did not
have serene thoughts about heaven (or anxious thoughts of devils,
fire). I remember thinking, well, now I'll finally know. I remember
thinking, I didn't have enough time. I remember thinking, I hope
it doesn't hurt.

And that's that, there
was no epiphany and no remembered death - for surely it would
result in an actual death, isn't that what they say about dreams?
I think, if anything, I dreamed that to remind myself that life
is short. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself, time to drop
the poor-me-I-am-worthless-without-a-job routine.

Or, maybe it means that
on my way to meet Peaches,
Feng,
and Haze
for lunch today I will be mowed down by an eighteen-wheeler.

ARTIFACT:a grocery receipt from a few days back.
I'm all chapped off cause I just noticed the clerk, who didn't
ID me for the beer I bought, listed my birthdate as June 2, 1964.
The hell? Do I look 38? Or is that date just some sort of default
"looks old enough to me" key?

PS. All the yogurts and puddings
I bought - they're for my performance art project.